Bonen no Max'd
Banned
we lowly earthlings will be ruled by distant autocrats in space colonies
it's become reverse Gundam
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PoliGAF 2017 |OT4| The leaks are coming from inside the white house
- Thread starter Spoiled Milk
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it's become reverse Gundam
I love Pelosi and I think she was a great Speaker but what's the point of being a great Speaker if your party can't get back in power? Party leaders in other countries have resigned for much smaller electoral defeats. I get that Hoyer sucks and she wants to cockblock him but it might be time to let it go.
What are you looking at?
Poodlestrike
Banned
Ok, then we attempt to appease Republicans, we sack Pelosi.
But then Republicans start leaning into Elizabeth Warren being Pocahontas. What then?
And then Republicans start leaning into Kamala Harris being a mad black woman. What then?
And then Republicans start leaning into Maxine Waters. What then?
whyamihere
Banned
discuss.
Box of Kittens
Banned
shinra-bansho
Member
Well, people are stupid.
Non-whites won't get less reliably Dem until the GOP stops defining itself around white supremacy, and that is only going to get worse before it gets better.
There was an opportunity, that we might have seen had McCain won, where the GOP had done corporatist-style immigration reform and included initiatives to bring in wealthy foreigners from places like China and India, make themselves competitive among Latinos and regain the initiative with Asians.
But it's hard to join a party that encourages the right to discriminate and elected Donald fucking Trump.
shinra-bansho
Member
Hell yeah. Fuck minorities.
AntraxSuicide
Banned
"when dems gain power again"
One step at a time, buddy.
Dem party is a wreck. Pelosi less popular than Trump. Obviously she doesn't deserve it, but that's the reality. Saying "well people are stupid" isn't going to win dems any seats. New people, same people, whatever -- dems need a new image either way. This isn't working.
Maybe things naturally swing back in 2018/2020 but it isn't looking like a sure thing and more importantly there's no reason to expect it to last. Trump should be making the entire GOP more toxic than ever before, but it's not happening -- hell, the GOP in congress aren't doing themselves any favors either with this healthcare stuff, but it doesn't seem to matter. After the election, Pelosi basically says she thinks dems can just keep on doing what they've been doing. I'm not sure if she's updated her position yet, but that's still insane. I can respect her skills as a legislator but uhhhh, wtf.
I don't know how you all aren't worried. The US government is a joke under the GOP and people don't seem to think dems would make it better. How is that acceptable? Is it unfair? Sure. People are dumb and GOP has no integrity and they use fear mongering to make democrats seem like monsters. But it works. And dems don't seem to have an answer to it.
This is how all governments work. Parties switch back and forth and then they do stuff; if it's good enough, it sticks through political inertia (touching Social Security is a third rail for anyone). If it sucks (AHCA), then it's easy to go back on it. As large as our country is and as slow as our government is, we can bureaucratically slow problem programs down until we take over, for the most part. If stuff like that passes, you sandbag it to hell and then run against it like it's the Devil.
Whether people like the Dems or not isn't that relevant. As someone from rural Mississippi, the words progressive, liberal, and Democrat are Mudd to most people I know outside of work, but they'll just have to suck it up and enjoy their healthcare, education, etc... that we pass when we get a chance.
Have you heard of the Sibyl System?
Some friends of mine did a game where we had to come up with a government without allowing for much democracy and my ideal system in such a situation would be authoritarian technocratic Council of experts (modeled around the Cabinet plus some extras).
My fake country's motto was E Pluribus Citations, Unum
whyamihere
Banned
(I don't think that's what he means)
Poodlestrike
Banned
Ehhhhhh
It made a lot of Dem leadership complacent but frankly the more damaging stuff is still the stuff the charges up the other side.
More damaging to the country too.
I agree with this statement in the sense that the belief of an inevitable Democratic utopia has made people complacent, reluctant to do the real work to protect what progressive gains we'e made, and blind to the power of the racism and hate that, often times, is sitting right across from us at the dinner table.
Believing shit like this has made the left believe that there was no way we could go back.
Autodidact
Banned
I swear, some Democrats have the strangest dynamic with Republicans. It's almost as though they've internalized the language about Republicans being the "strong," masculine party, and they want to please their fucking daddy who mocked them for being girly when they were young.
"Look, daddy, I let you make amendments to my bill. Will you praise me now?"
"Look, daddy, I got rid of the mean lady. Will you love me now?"
"Look, daddy, I reached across the aisle like you told me to. Will you stop hitting me now?"
The appropriate response to anything they say or ask should be, "Fuck you."
"Look, daddy, I let you make amendments to my bill. Will you praise me now?"
"Look, daddy, I got rid of the mean lady. Will you love me now?"
"Look, daddy, I reached across the aisle like you told me to. Will you stop hitting me now?"
The appropriate response to anything they say or ask should be, "Fuck you."
Box of Kittens
Banned
Well the book has the problem of being one that people talk confidently about despite never having actually read it. The analysis always had its problems (see the sections on West Virginia and Missouri) but it mostly did a good job of describing the Obama coalition years in advance. I think we're entering an era in which that analysis no longer applies or at the very least parts of it are clearly no longer true, making the road for Democrats going forward tougher. I certainly think the idea that Democrats can just sit around and wait for demographics to hand them a majority is flawed, but again that's more what people imagine the book says rather than what it actually says.
Amen.
Agreed.
neurosisxeno
Member
So has anyone broke down the Senate draft of AHCA? I know the whole text is out, but I haven't found any good breakdowns.
shinra-bansho
Member
Well that's why twitter is garbage.
Yup.
Roland_Gunner
Member
Pretty sure thats still Growth in a Time of Debt by Reinhart & Rogoff.
I don't agree with people on what happened to the Dems in 2016. The party leadership wasn't complacent. People were terrified that young, charismatic Marco Rubio was going to pull away Obama voters from Clinton. Their solution, wrongly in retrospect, was to clear the field so that Clinton could raise a huge warchest to crush Rubio. It wasn't complaceny, it was a combination is mis-diagnosing the problem and over-estimating our ability to predict what voters would want.
First of all. I'm barely arguing here that Pelosi should go, just that I see the writing on the wall. Secondly, I'm in no way saying this is to appease Republicans so I don't know why you're going there. Thirdly, Republicans won't "start leaning" into those things because they already do them. It is known that women and people of color are easy targets for them.
Anyway I don't know why you're getting pissed off at me here. I care more about Pelosi than you do considering the fact that her leaving the leadership would mean the Bay Area is losing some influence in the party.
Box of Kittens
Banned
Certainly clearing the field for Clinton was a colossal mistake.
Autodidact
Banned
I though we assumed Jeb Bush would be the nominee before Hurricane Don swept away the competition.
Since when does Marco Rubio have charisma? He lacks even the nouveau riche, oleaginous, used-car salesman charisma some people think Trump has.
Since when does Marco Rubio have charisma? He lacks even the nouveau riche, oleaginous, used-car salesman charisma some people think Trump has.
The only reason we're talking about removing Pelosi right now is GA-6.
Her last challenger was laughed at by most of us in this thread.
You see the writing on the wall. I see the writing on the wall. Pelosi likely sees the writing on the wall. Nobody knows Pelosi is old more astutely than Pelosi herself.
If that's not where you're coming from, I apologize. But let's not act like this week's discussion of Pelosi's usefulness to the party just happened on its own.
Sure the caucus could always vote her out, but the economic-populist faction of the party is smaller than the moderate-progressive faction: most of our Reps come from big cities or from majority-minority areas (like Hawaii, the Sonora Desert, or the majority black areas of the South).
If you frame a leadership challenge as a clash of those factions, the economic-populists are going to lose hard. They need to present a credible alternative that's palatable to the caucus majority.
If you frame a leadership challenge as a clash of those factions, the economic-populists are going to lose hard. They need to present a credible alternative that's palatable to the caucus majority.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Tbh, one of the easiest things in the world for Dems to do is commit to not stacking the deck like that in a primary again. Which... they have done.
So, you know, points to Perez.
GA-06 is why people are talking about this but I alluded to other electoral defeats in my earlier post. In hindsight, she should have stepped down in 2010.
But if Democrats were doomed to be in the minority until now regardless of leader, I'm glad it was with Pelosi and not Hoyer.
I still think this is not the correct way to think about it. There was an internal primary. Clinton won so overwhelmingly that nobody serious was even able to muster up a campaign against her. Calling that "clearing the field" implies that people just didn't try. But they tried, they were just unable to convince other people in the party to support them over Clinton. Most notably, Biden pretty explicitly tried to run for president and wasn't able to get enough people to back him for it to be worth announcing.
Autodidact
Banned
They know that. Why else do you think they're bitching so loudly this week? They're trying to turn the caucus and the Democratic-voting public against her so they can mount a successful challenge.
I mean, she could pull a Theresa May and call a leadership election herself while she still has a reasonable guarantee of winning.
Maybe, if it really drove Hillary to think she could run the Sun Belt strategy 10 years ahead of schedule.
Box of Kittens
Banned
Sure, I mostly agree with this. Perhaps it would be better to say that deciding the nomination via the invisible primary is a bad thing, but also a tough one to know what to do about.
Autodidact
Banned
Well, the thing is that she wasn't entirely wrong. She made impressive gains in the entire Sun Belt, from Orange County to North Carolina. If she'd managed the squeaker in WI/MI/PA, we'd all agree that despite her narrow win she'd pointed our way toward the future. Even with the loss, she kind of has: reclaim WI/MI/PA for as long as we can, but focus hard on GA and AZ next time.
Roland_Gunner
Member
Search google, there are an endless number of liberals pissing themselves and neocons swooning over Rubio in 2015 / early 2016. But you're right that parties view was that:
Bush may drown us in GOP establishment money OR
Rubio may sweep young voters away with his dashing Hispanic charms OR
Kasich may convince people that he's actually a folksy moderate.
They never counted on Trump whipping up a white nationalist movement that went directly against Clinton's perceived insider status.
Some fair points but two things:
1. Clearly one of the things that pissed of Sanders supporters was that the party didn't even want to give them a choice. This belief that Clinton was picked by insiders and the primary was just a formality drove a lot of the nuttiness regarding the claims that it was fixed, despite very thin evidence.
2. I think there is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that Warren was pressured to not challenge Clinton on the basis that it would weaken her before the general. That left the field open for Bernie, who attracted the same followers but was less committed to supporting the party.
She probably figured Trump was a shitty enough candidate that she could move the schedule up a cycle and get some early gains they could build on next time. For most of the race it looked like a gamble that would pay off.
I mean, ultimately I think it's always going to happen? Dozens of people will consider a run for president in 2020. They'll pay somebody to do some preliminary polls, maybe some very early self-oppo, and call a few people to see if they would be interested in working on their campaign or donating some cash. For the majority of those people, the answers they get will be negative and the campaign will go away without anybody really knowing about it. That's the invisible primary in action. And we probably want it to work that way so we don't have 40 people running for the Dem nomination, most of whom we would consider lousy candidates.
You could maybe argue that Clinton's strength in the invisible primary was so high that it created problems for the party, but that's mostly a Clinton-specific problem. Nobody else is Hillary Clinton.
balladofwindfishes
Member
Trump moved the Midwest swing movement up. In a different situation, it could be possible to swing more sun belt states ahead of "schedule"
Except that we ran into this problem w/ Gore as well to a lesser degree- though the "8 years? ITS BOTH SIDES TIME" thing seems to be f'ing unavoidable.
There's a strong anti-authoritarian streak on the liberal side that creates a lot of headaches alongside the whole "sitting duck for 8+ years taking shit from the GOP" thing.
The Dubya strategy of picking a VP who likely doesn't want to be President alongside a relatively younger candidate is actually looking rather good as a pattern to emulate. It's why a Franken VP nod would be fantastic.
But it is very unlikely we face a Hillary situation again in our lifetimes w/ a candidate who hadn't put in the work w/ numerous elections in their history.
NYCmetsfan
Banned
nobody is "appeasing republicans" by picking a new leader.
pelosi isn't winning and is actively losing. she needs to go
the point is others, be they women or not, would win us seats despite the GOP's attempts to tar them. pelosi can't win seats.
I mean we won seats last year with clinton in the senate and house. lets not pretend this is all about women being unelectable or that saying no to pelosi is saying no to feminism or women in leadership. Pelosi is particularly toxic to the party with no upsides. All of those others (besides waters who i'm confused is in the same category) have major upsides in addition to the GOPs blatant sexism campaigns
absolutely not. there was talk of this post 2014 and post trump. Every loss does ad impetus to it. And since this is the last race on the calendar before 2018 it makes sense to start talking about it more now but nobody was pro-pelosi pre ossoff winning and anti her because of a loss
Box of Kittens
Banned
It's tough because the invisible primary does, as you say, reward some things that actually are valuable. But it's clearly bad for it to winnow the field down to one viable candidate, because the primary process also filters out based on other important things, things that turned out to be major weaknesses for Clinton. So ultimately I don't think you'd want to entirely get rid of the invisible primary (nor could you), but there is the danger of it ultimately anointing a candidate with fatal weaknesses.
Yeah, there's a normal back and forth, but Trump and the current GOP aren't acting normal, so why are we ok with normal feedback from the electorate? GOP has gone off the rails and the american public hasn't seemed to notice. Their hate for dems is as strong as ever. That's not a good sign. It suggests the new normal is GOP control.
Later on in the same post...
"Maybe things naturally swing back in 2018/2020 but it isn't looking like a sure thing and more importantly there's no reason to expect it to last. "
Nancy Pelosi is the minority leader of the House. It isn't her job to win races. You don't seem to understand what Pelosi's job actually is.
It's her job to keep her caucus together and whip votes in the House. And she IS currently winning at that.
Yes, we could vote suppress the Republican vote.
shinra-bansho
Member
Here, I reanalysed the results.
Box of Kittens
Banned
GoldenEye 007
Member
What are you talking about? A House minority leader's job isn't to win races. It's to keep the Democratic House in line. Which she does quite well.
Roland_Gunner
Member
Democrats are losing the races because the districts are filled with Republican voters who dislike Democrats more than Trump. If it wasn't Pelosi it would be Chuck Schumer, or whoever else. Unless you want to make Joe Manchin or Jim Justice the face of the party, trying to appease conservatives isn't going to do much good.
They ran fucking Jane Fonda on the ad.
Jane. Fonda.
Removing Pelosi won't stop them from using her!
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